The Bird wonders why Sheriff Joe Arpaio put a U.S. citizen behind bars for simply appearing Mexican

Did ICE train Arpaio's goons so they could hold American citizens, without informing ICE that they're doing so? Don't think so. Even those opposed to illegal immigration should be incensed by this latest, flagrant, and likely criminal abuse of power by the MCSO.

ICE should immediately move to suspend the 287G status of Arpaio's deputies. Under Nickel Bag Joe's regime, the MCSO cannot be trusted to perform its local duties professionally, much less execute federal laws without malice or bias.

$43.4 MIL & COUNTING

Whatever Israel Correa's inevitable civil rights claim costs the county, we'll have to add it to the $43.4 million and counting in Maricopa County lawsuit payouts because of Sheriff Joe's medieval jail system.

That figure's up $2 million from the $41.4 million cited in our cover story last month, "Inhumanity Has a Price" (John Dickerson, December 20, another segment of "Target Practice"). The $2 mil was the county's settlement on a complaint brought by tort titan Mike Manning on behalf of the family of Brian Crenshaw, a 40-year-old, legally blind, mentally disabled man who died as a result of a severe beating sustained in MCSO custody.

Crenshaw was in jail for shoplifting. The MCSO knew he was mentally handicapped, his eyesight impaired. A doc at Correctional Health Services wrote an order stating Crenshaw was not to be housed in Tent City. He was housed there anyway.

Standing in a chow line one day, Crenshaw was approached by MCSO Officer Jimmy Martinez, who ordered Crenshaw to show his inmate ID card. Crenshaw didn't respond. A scuffle ensued. Crenshaw was placed in handcuffs, and led to a holding cell. Martinez later admitted in a deposition that Crenshaw was shoved into a metal table and wire mesh. Other officers joined in the assault, according to the complaint.

Crenshaw was held in solitary confinement for six days. He complained of being beaten by detention officers, of having severe wounds. When he was eventually moved to Maricopa County Medical Center, emergency room doctors discovered his neck and toes were broken. Crenshaw slipped into a coma from which he never awoke and died April 15, 2003. An independent autopsy determined the cause of death to be peritonitis and blood poisoning due to a perforated duodenum.

How did Crenshaw incur these injuries? Arpaio's hatchet man-esquire Jack MacIntyre says Crenshaw fell off his bunk.

"Even if you could come up with the notion that he broke his neck falling off a bunk, how do you fracture your toes, and scrape them?" asked Manning in response to MacIntyre's claim. "You don't scrape your toes by falling off a bunk. That's absurd."

Following the settlement, MacIntyre, one of Arpaio's several spokesmen, mouthed off to the Arizona Republic: "Government entities are always going to be targets, especially for these bogus civil-rights-type claims."

Pretty cocky crap from a lawyer-relegated-to-flack whose department had just lost to the tune of $2 freakin' mil. But neither Joe nor MacIntyre has to front the dough. We bill-bearers do, along with paying their salaries. The $2 mil falls under the county's $5 mil deductible for its liability insurance. Why so high? Because the sheriff's shoddily run gulags draw lawsuits like rats to rotten oranges.

Can someone tell MacIntyre to shut his pettifogging pie-hole? "Bogus" complaint?! MacIntyre's either a moron or he knows that he'd better keep his lips securely around Arpaio's withered pecker. Or else!

NUREMBERG REDUX?

The Taloned One loves how State Representative Russell Pearce is all excuses when he forwards neo-Nazi National Alliance e-mails to supporters, or is spotted arm-in-arm with swastika-worshippers like J.T. Ready. It's either, "I didn't read the e-mail," or, "I didn't know he was a white supremacist." But the proof, as they say, is in the puddinhead.

In person, Pearce strikes you as having the IQ of a horse's hoof. But he's extremely effective at instituting his one-note-Johnny anti-brown plan for Sand Land. Last year, it was employer sanctions. This year, AZ's doofus Dr. Evil is bolder, more twisted.

Pearce has already made known his intent to put a referendum on the November ballot that would prohibit hospitals from issuing birth certificates to children born of illegal parents. Never mind that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution clearly states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Constitution, shmonstitution! Pearce the prejudiced pinhead has spoken!

Other Pearce-sponsored legislation in this session reveals a methodical goose-step toward the eradication of an entire class of individuals from AZ's population. The most dastardly is House Bill 2631, which amends marriage law to require that prospective brides and grooms provide both Social Security numbers and proof of citizenship before a marriage license is issued.

So, only Americans can wed Americans, in Russell-ville. (Inbreeding is optional.) What if your girlfriend's here on a student visa? Tough luck. How 'bout if your boyfriend has a green card? Better look for a citizen, sweetie. Preferably a white one.

The Bird would have to be tone deaf to history not to note a faint echo of Nazi Germany's Nuremberg laws. These instituted a blood test for citizenship, something ol' Russ would probably be down with. Like Pearce's proposals, the Nuremberg laws also dealt with nuptials, forbidding marriages "between Jews and citizens of German blood."